Update 2 | Laptop retrieved from Daphne Caruana Galizia's home was last used in 2015

Updated at 12.22pm. The sitting has ended

The police extracted almost two terabytes of CCTV footage from various places around Malta as part of the investigation into Daphne Caruana Galizia's murder, the court was told this morning.

Court-appointed expert Keith Cutajar was the first to take to the witness stand as the compilation of evidence against three men accused of murdering Caruana Galizia continued on Thursday morning. The parties are planning to hold an onsite visit in Bidnija next week.

He said that footage from between 60 and 70 CCTV cameras had been extracted. The cameras were situated in Bidnija road, where the car bomb exploded, Burmarrad road, which is the main thoroughfare below Bidnija, the Valletta Cruise port terminal, Transport Malta’s port cameras, 27 street cameras, the camera at Percius car hire, Identity Malta and Mount St Joseph in the outskirts of Mosta.

In the last sitting, the court heard various police officers testify how they were accompanied by experts from Europol during the various searches conducted at places linked to the accused.

George Degiorgio, his brother Alfred Degiorgio, and Vincent Muscat, were arrested last December and charged with the journalist's murder.

The one-night hotel stay

A second witness, Balazs Szara, a hotel receptionist at the San Andrea hotel in Xlendi, testified that Alfred Degiorgio had booked a one night stay with breakfast last November.

In the last sitting, the court heard a man testify that Degiorgio invited him to his hotel room in Gozo after the two had met at the Hamrun chocolate festival a week after the murder.

The man had told the court that he spent 15 minutes with Degiorgio in the hotel room and since then never had any contact with him.

The hotel receptionist exhibited documentation related to check-ins at the hotel and a guest list.

Mobiles recovered from seabed

An Armed Forces of Malta diver has testified about the searches conducted at sea, near the potato shed in Marsa where the accused were arrested.

The potato shed in Marsa where the accused were based

He explained that searches took place over a 10-metre stretch out to sea, from the dockside, and various mobile phones were found on the seabed.

The phones were found in the sea, between the two boats tied to the quay, however the witness could not recall the names of the vessels. He pointed out that one was a blue boat and the other was white.

On 4 December, the AFM diver found one Samsung and one Nokia phones, which were handed over to forensic experts.

Read also: Marsa’s ‘potato shed’: a den of criminality with a window to the high sea

Another AFM diver told the court he found four mobile phones, some batteries, SIM card holders and Nokia covers, on the seabed.

Army divers spent all week inspecting the seabed, although the visibility was not good. He explained that they had been told to look for mobiles and items related to explosives.

Asked by defence lawyer Martin Fenech to describe what else was on the seabed, the soldier said there was all sorts of rubbish. “It's like a dumping area,” he said.

Caruana Galizia’s laptop

A laptop retrieved from Caruana Galizia’s house was last used in December 2015, court expert Alfred Cardona told the court.

The laptop, a maroon Dell mini, did not contain any recent material from the journalist’s blog, he said. It was the only laptop given to him for analysis.

In another sitting last December, police inspector Kurt Zahra had testified that no sign of Caruana Galizia’s laptop was found at the scene of the explosion and the victim's son did not know whether she had taken it out with her.

Cardona said that Caruana Galizia’s son had told police she had stopped using the Dell laptop retrieved from the house.

Cardona said he found some text exchanges between Caruana Galizia and Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando on the laptop and stuff about a family holiday in Italy. He explained that if data was deleted and overwritten it could be retrieved, but if it was deleted from the server there was no going back.

The expert said two cameras and a memory card were also lifted from Caruana Galizia’s house to be analysed.

He explained that analysing any data saved to the Cloud was not his remit.

Arnaud had asked for measures to be taken to protect Caruana Galizia’s sources.

Last October, journalists had asked for Caruana Galizia's sources to be protected throughout the investigation

Comodini Cachia noted in court that the Institute of Journalists in the aftermath of the murder had filed a formal request in the inquiry for Caruana Galizia’s sources to be protected.

“As parte civile we have the obligation to protect any sources that she had. The other party’s professional secrecy only binds them, not their clients. The court must give direction as to how the information can be used by the defence,” Comodini Cachia said.

However, the prosecution and the lawyers appearing for the Caruana Galizia family agreed that the laptop under scrutiny was an old one and could be seen by the defence.

Searches at George Degiorgio’s house

Police officers who searched George Degiorgio’s house in St Paul’s Bay, lifted all electronic equipment, including a PlayStation console.

Police officer Ray Sciberras from the vice squad said that along with two other officers, forensic experts and a member of Europol, he was instructed to search Degiorgio’s residence.

He told the court the door was opened by Degiorgio’s partner, who had a small child with her. The accused was not present.

Defence lawyer Cuschieri asked whether a search warrant was shown but the officer said he could not remember. The lawyer argued that no warrant was shown and all equipment was removed from the scene.

The other defence lawyer, Fenech, highlighted that the police present for the various searches did not know the name of the Europol experts. However, Arnaud insisted he had personally assigned the experts and would be testifying about it.

The sitting has ended. A request for bail will be discussed next Tuesday, while the parties will conduct an onsite visit on 20 April.

The case continues on 26 April.

FACTS OF THE CASE

Who are the accused

• George Degiorgio 55, unemployed, lives in St Paul's Bay, known as Ic-Ciniz
• Alfred Degiorgio, 53, unemployed lives in St Paul's Bay, known as il-Fulu
• Vincent Muscat, 55, unemployed lives in Msida, known as il-Kohhu

Who are the courtroom players

• Magistrate Claire Stafrace Zammit is presiding
• Inspectors Keith Arnaud and Kurt Zahra are prosecuting
• Deputy attorney general Philip Galea Farrugia is assiting the prosecution
• Martin Fenech is appearing for Vince Muscat
• William Cuschieri and Martha Muscat are appearing for Alfred Degiorgio
• Josette Sultana is appearing for George Degiorgio
• Therese Comodini Cachia and Jason Azzopardi are appearing parte civile for the Daphne Caruana Galizia family

What we know so far

Caruana Galizia’s car

• The Peugeot car Daphne Caruana Galizia was driving at the time had been leased four months before
• Her son Matthew Caruana Galizia had occasionally used the car in the period
• Matthew was the last person to have parked the car outside the gate of the family’s Bidnija home
• Investigators dismantled a similar model of the car to determine whether any debris collected from the crime scene was extraneous
• This led the police to discover the presence of an electronic board, which was part of the SIM card dock on the explosive device

The ‘small white car’

• A person who spoke to the police had noticed a “small white car” frequenting a particular area at Tat-Targa Battery, part of the Victoria Lines
• On the day of the murder the white car was there but unlike previous occasions the driver was not inside
• Police noticed that next to where the car used to be parked part of a wall had collapsed and led to a place with a birds-eye view of Bidnija
• Forensic experts combed the area for any clues, including cigarette butts
• After the murder, the car was never seen again
• Given Caruana Galizia did not have a fixed pattern of movement, police believe someone was shadowing her movements

The detonator

• Location data from the Bidnija area led the police to home in on a number that received an SMS at 2.58pm and stopped broadcasting thereafter
• The number was linked to an electronic device normally found in appliances that can be activated remotely
• This device acted as the detonator of the car bomb
• The device was switched on in the Bidnija area at around 2am on 16 October
• It remained in a static location for the day until it received an SMS and disappeared

The killer SMS

• The SMS that triggered the bomb was sent from a Nokia 105 mobile phone connected to the cell tower near the YMCA in Valletta
• This phone was switched on, on the day of the explosion and started broadcasting from a cell ID near the Curia
• The signal moved to Paceville, Senglea, Rinella, Zabbar and Xghajra as it bounced from cell towers north and south of the country every hour
• The cell towers all faced seawards that led police to suspect the mobile phone was on a boat circling the island
• The number linked to the detonator and the number that sent the SMS had been set up in November 2016 and had only corresponded with each other on three occasions

The pleasure boats

• The Degiorgio brothers both own pleasure boats
• CCTV footage showed that one of them – the Maya – was spotted leaving the Grand Harbour at around 8am before turning north
• At the time the killer SMS was sent, the Maya was spotted under the Great Siege Bell area, where it stopped for a few minutes before heading towards Marsa

The top up call

• The Secret Service had intercepted a call from George Degiorgio’s phone, asking the recipient to top him up with €5
• The person was unable to and Degiorgio called another person, asking the same question “Don’t take long, if you can,” Degiorgio told the person
• The person complied and minutes later topped up the number identified by George Degiorgio
• Police obtained call profiles relating to George Degiorgio, Alfred Degiorgio and Vince Muscat
• All mobile numbers involved were activated within 20 minutes of each other – two were activated in Senglea and the third in Hamrun

Other points

• Alfred Degiorgio's DNA matched that found on a cigarette butt, which was picked up from the Victoria Lines
• Police say Alfred Degiorgio was the spotter monitoring the Caruana Galizia household and is believed to have remained all night at the vantage point
• Alfred called his brother George Degiorgio to inform him Caruana Galizia had left the house
• The call lasted 107 seconds, which is the time it takes to drive from the house to where the bomb exploded
• After detonating the bomb by SMS, George Degiorgio messaged his wife with the words: "Buy me wine, my love."
• George Degiorgio had been telling people the day before the murder that he was going fishing
• After the incident George was heard boasting "I've caught two big fish today".
• Though unemployed, the Degiorgio brothers each owned a boat and luxury cars
• Europol experts accompanied Malta police investigations and searches when the three men were arrested